Challenges and Opportunities of Future Vehicle Diagnostics in Software-Defined Vehicles

The automotive industry changes rapidly. New players, concepts, and technologies from the Information Technology (IT) domain enter the market and software receives a high priority. Inside the vehicle, the number of components, which consist mostly of software, are increasing and more and more software-based functions are offered. In addition, High Performance Computers (HPCs) are continuing to be integrated into vehicles. These aspects lead to several challenges with current vehicle diagnostics, but also enable new opportunities in that field. However, in the specific area of vehicle diagnostics, there exists only very limited literature that considers current challenges and new possibilities for future vehicle diagnostics. Some literature deals with the general automotive system design or shows results from about five years ago. The viewpoints of an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) are not included there. This paper presents results from an expert survey in order to identify what challenges and new opportunities are currently affecting vehicle diagnostics in the year 2022. The survey was conducted within the publicly-funded project Software-Defined Car (SofDCar), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. The survey shows the ongoing state of the vehicle diagnostics in the industry as well as needs and ideas from the perspective of diagnostics experts. In addition, the survey results are compared with respective statements from the academic, scientific area to decrease the gap between the industry and research communities. Therefore, aspects for possible future work in the field of vehicle diagnostics can be identified. Based on that, goals beyond the survey are to think about how a concept for HPC diagnostics could look like and how it might influences an approach for future vehicle diagnostics.